Kellemes Husveti Unnepeket!

Happy Easter!

Here we are dressed in our Sunday best headed to church. We decided to go to Danube International Church this morning so that we could celebrate our Savior's victory over death in English, and the day was made even more special when Istvan, Glenn's Hungarian friend, said he would go with us! He enjoyed the service in English and said he'd like to go again sometime. Wow! We spent the rest of the day around the house until it was time to go to the Eden House for worship, again in English, with other missionaries in our organization. We needed a day of rest because the past week has been rather stressful.

We got terribly sad news mid-week that a dear friend of ours passed away. Jo Chupp and her husband, Ed, were our next door neighbors on Big Oaks Drive and we grew to love them very much. They were the kindest, most gracious couple I've ever met. I know Jo prayed for us and that meant so much to me. I will miss her very much and going home to Big Oaks Drive will only be half as much fun as it has been for all these years. I look forward to seeing Jo in heaven one day. I can almost hear her say, "And I won't be in this confounded wheelchair!"

Judit made me quite an Easter present. Or, should I say "presents"? She made me an Easter wreath to hang on my front door, decorated with colorful fabric eggs. She also decoupaged an empty green wine bottle (she knows my living room is green) and put 3 Pussy Willow tails in it on which to hang the 6 hand-painted eggs she and her daughter made for me! This is a typical Hungarian craft. They blew the eggs empty, then painted them (because all their eggs here are brown) with the typical Hungarian designs found on all their local crafts. Because she wasn't pleased with the way the green decoupaged wine bottle turned out, she went to the store and bought another bottle of wine (this one she left unopened, full of wine :-) and decoupaged it too. She wouldn't accept that I preferred the green (EMPTY) wine bottle so she made me take both of them. I should have taken a picture of the eggs hanging from the Pussy Willow branches in the bottle on the living room mantle to show you. (If you look at the picture of Glenn and me above, you can see two of the eggs hanging out from behind my left ear!)

We've had gorgeous weather this week and spring is very definitely here. Got my spices planted in pots for the steps again this year. Dill, Basil, Parsley, Chives, Rosemary, and two cherry tomato plants.

Our strawberry plants are taking over the "back yard". They are spreading as fast as the raspberry bushes! We should have our first strawberries in about 2 weeks and they will produce until early September! I love going outside and picking a few strawberries to go in my yogurt for breakfast.

Glenn has been having a good ol' time working out in the yard. He is a maniac with clippers so don't get near him unless you want a haircut! He "trimmed" the cedar tree and now my little garden will get lots of sunshine. We definitely have the most beautiful yard in our neighborhood.

Earlier this week around the corner from our house, I passed a dumpster in the street full of all kinds of bushes, bulbs and flowers that had been pulled up and thrown out. SCORE! Glenn and I went back with plastic bags to scavenge. (Is that a word?) (Have I no shame?) The owner of the home happened to be standing next to the dumpster when we got there, so I timidly asked her, "Do you speak English?" She does, in fact, quite well! "Do you mind if we dig through your dumpster to get some of the plants you're throwing out?" She told us she was redoing the landscape in her yard-getting rid of all the flowers and bushes and laying sod!! We got close to 150 double Jonquil bulbs, 3 flowering bushes of which I do not know the name, and 2 Peonie bushes! I have no shame but lots of plants!!!!!

Glenn has really enjoyed working in the yard this week but will take a break as he heads to Prague on Tuesday for a meeting. I won't be alone because I have a friend coming from London to spend 10 days with me. P-A-R-T-Y!

Have a great week!

Work and Play

We (or I) had company come this week from Sunday through Thursday. Katie, the new Lead Education Consultant, came for 4 days for us to "talk shop". She has picked up some of my work for me so that I can move closer back to doing member care, which I've appreciated. I have loved working as the Education Consultant for Europe for these past 4 years, helping families with their educational concerns, but I have requested to be relieved of my consultant role because it is too difficult to do two full-time jobs and do them well. I am wanting to move back to member care full time.

If you remember .... last Sunday was Glenn's birthday and I gave him a 3-D puzzle of the Parliment building. Well, while I was meeting with Katie, Glenn was working on the puzzle.

Glenn numbered each piece before putting it in place so that we could take it apart and put it together again another time.

Piece by piece...

It slowly came together. Glenn was able to eavesdrop without being obvious about it. :-)

He completed it in three days.

And now it is on display in our living room for all to oooh and ahhh over.

And here is the real deal. This photo was taken earlier today while Glenn and I were in town.

Jimmy and Natalie, two of our former Journeymen, are in Budapest on a mission trip from the U.S. and are staying with us. They are here as media specialists to document Michael Frost, an Australian church planter and author, as he speaks on The Church in a Broken World at one of our local community centers (a ministry point place). Natalie went through the Orientation Center with us in Virginia 4+ years ago so we go way back. Jimmy and Natalie became sweet on each other 2 years ago when they both came to Budapest for the Journeyman Christmas that we hosted at the Eden House so we feel we had an integral part in the beginning of their relationship! :-)

We accompanied them into town this morning to help them meet up with the rest of their group who were staying in a hotel in downtown Budapest since they didn't know where they were going.

After connecting them with their group leader, Glenn and I decided to stay downtown and walk around for some exercise. Following are some of the things we saw...in no particular order.

We came across a store called Culinaris which is an import store that sells a lot of food items from around the world, including the U.S. There are now 3 Culinaris' in town.

We happened on the only one of the 3 that is open on Sunday, so we walked in to look around. They had all the normal goodies, like pancake syrup, Pop-tarts, cake mixes, Rice Krispies, Oreo cookies, etc. and they were for sale for an arm and leg, of course! If you know how to enlarge this photo, you may recognize Bazooka gum and Oreo Bits in the window for sale.

When the weather turns warm, all Hungarians come out. And they bring their dogs with them.

And their plastic baggies for cleaning up their dog messes. With this many dogs in one small patch of grass, that is important!

We also walked down to Margaret Island, a small island in the middle of the Danube River that has been transformed into a city park. We walked around the outer edges of the island and enjoyed a langos (a flat, fried piece of sweet dough smeared with sour cream and shredded cheese, lightly dribbled with a tasty garlic sauce). Yum!

We then walked back along the other side of the Danube River to the Gellert Hotel, passing the famous Szecheny Bridge with the lions (without their tongues???) where we caught the tram home.

Funny sight for the day-someone storing their summer tires out on their balcony. Guess they will be soon swapping and storing their winter tires up there.

I saw an add for Walmark brand Omega 3-6-9 pills and wondered if they were capitalizing on the American brand, Walmart. What do you think???

This sign points to Budafok, which is the area of Budapest where Glenn and I live. The sign says it is 10.1 kilometers to Budafok. Well, we didn't walk home but we probably did walk 10 kilometers in town today! We walked from 9:30 am until 2:00 pm, pretty much non-stop. Oh, my aching feet! And then we came home and took a nap. Tomorrow, if I can get out of bed, we'll know that the glucosamine tablets I've been taking for the past month work!!

Well, that's it for this week. Jimmy and Natalie are here until Wednesday, and then we'll have a quiet house for a few days before Annette comes to visit. But that's a story for the following week! I love having all this company!

Glenn almost missed his birthday!

Yes, something happened this week that we have never experienced, and it almost kept Glenn from making it to his own birthday party!

With all the snow and salt, sand and grit on the road from the winter months, our car was looking pretty nasty so we took it to be washed. Granted, I never took our car to be washed in America (because Glenn or Chris always washed them by hand), but I've never even heard of washing a car with STEAM instead of water!!! Maybe it's because we lived in the south and washing with water wasn't a big deal in the dead of winter...It's possible that up north where it's much colder and snow is on the ground much longer that steam car washes exist. Anyway, for this southern lady, I'd never seen anyone wash a car using ONLY steam.

When I asked the guy if I could take a picture of him washing the car, I explained to him and his 2 buddies that they don't wash cars with steam in America where I came from, that we use water. He kinda had a puzzled look on his face, shrugged his shoulders, and then said, "Yes, take pictures." After taking a couple of pictures, as I was walking away, one of the 3 said something in Hungarian, of which the only word I understood was "American", and then the 3 of them burst out laughing. I'm not sure I want to know what he said. No, I'm sure I DON'T want to know!

But this tale doesn't have anything to do with Glenn almost missing his birthday party. Read on.

Turkey is plentiful here in Hungary, but you can't just walk into a grocery store and buy a 12-14 pound turkey for a special occasion. They raise turkeys until they are huge in size, bigger than any I've seen for sale in America, and then sell them already cut into breasts or legs, or ground up (like hamburger meat), and the remaining parts go into turkey sausages.

Anyway, since Glenn and I both prefer dark meat, we decided to go for just the drumsticks. To make the meal more festive, we used some spices that Kate brought us back from Kenya called Garam Masala. It was delicious! The only thing missing was the sweet potato casserole!

But that didn't have anything to do with why Glenn almost missed his own party!

Can you tell the difference in these two 10,000 forint bills? Well, maybe you can now that I've drawn your attention to it, but Glenn didn't. But the cashier at the store did! She called the store manager and several others over to try to communicate to him that the bill he'd just passed to her was counterfeit! He got a little nervous when the store manager got on the phone to call someone. Glenn figured he'd be learning all sorts of new Hungarian vocabulary words, like pokey, slammer, jailbird, inmate... and how mad I would be at him for not calling me to let me know he wouldn't be home in time for his birthday dinner/party later that evening!

Fortunately, they figured he was innocent and let him go. They even let him keep the counterfeit bill!!! A lot of good it will do us though. We're out $50, but it makes a good story. An expensive story, but a good one.

And he enjoyed telling the story later that evening when the Doyles, Clubbs and Snyders joined us for our first cook-out of 2011! Glenn grilled burgers and sausages (it's a Hungarian thing-anytime you have a guest over for a meal, you are supposed to offer 3 kinds of grilled meats. We're all Americans, so we compromised and served 2.)

Mary made Glenn a home-made German chocolate cake, his all-time favorite! We're not talking a box mix with a Betty Crocker tub of pecan coconut frosting. It was the real deal made from scratch! It was 3 layers and had tons of great tasting frosting!

For his birthday, I got Glenn a 3-D puzzle of the Hungarian Parliment building. We've set up the card table in our living room (or is that our dining room????) and he is starting to put it together as I write this blog. I'll have another picture next week of the finished product!

Have a great week! We have company coming this week for 3-4 days to work on education plans and I hope to have some good news for you in the very near future. Well, it's good news for me, but I hope to be able to share it with you soon!!

Sweet, Sweet Home!

It is so good to be home! During the month of March, we only slept in our own bed a total of 6 nights so I am ready to be here for a while. I usually love to go, go, go, but after having been gone, gone, gone 5 out of the 8 weeks we've been back, I am ready to stay, stay, stay!

This has been a wonderful week. Each time we travel for any length of time, we have to give away, throw out or freeze any leftovers, dairy products, fruits and fresh vegetables. Since we were out of town for the past month, we didn't have anything in our refrigerator so after making a massive trip to Tesco and Auchan, our cubbards are finally full once again.

The yard is another thing that has demanded some of our time this past week. Basically, the last time we tended to it was just before we left for the States the end of August so it was in great need of some TLC! (tender, loving care) Now that the sun is shining and all the trees are budding, the weeds are cropping up everywhere! We made a trip to the plant nursery to buy some flowers to put in the ground to add some color to our yard, and everything looks so pretty now!

The only big news for this past week was the arrival of our crate from America. It arrived on Thursday-in excellent condition!

For the most part, we packed our clothes, books, decorations, favorite food items, tools, games, candles, another electric ice cream machine (thanks to Anne Q!), DVD's, dishes (including some Polish pottery), fabric, etc. in footlockers, plastic tubs and boxes. All in all, we had 62 cubic feet of goods that was shipped by boat in a large cardboard box (you can see it in the background against the front wall inside the truck).

I have to tell you something. A lot of time Americans get frustrated with the way things run (or don't run) overseas and since absence makes the heart grow fonder, we (Americans) tend to think no country is as good as the U.S.. Well, the shipping company that was to deliver our crate had said they would arrive on Thursday at 3:30 pm. Now, in America, the best we could have hoped for would have been a 2-3 hour window for the delivery, but here they said 3:30. Not between 3:30-4:00 pm even. Well, at 3:15 pm we got a call from the shipping company to let us know they were caught in traffic and would be 15 minutes late! Can you believe it??? As it turned out, they were only 5 minutes late, having arrived at 3:35 pm!!!

Would that have happened in America anywhere?

This is a top view of our worldly goods that arrived.

One of the first things I unpacked was a 92 oz. container of Orville Redenbacher popcorn from a special friend of mine. Glenn and I try to eat our main meal at lunch and snack on popcorn or omlettes at night. Even though we eat a lot of popcorn, it will probably take us a year to polish off this jug!!

While we were unpacking the footlockers down in the basement, I was talking with Kari on Skype. While I was talking with her, Glenn was hard at work opening all the boxes and footlockers and taking out his things, putting them away as he pulled them out.

Me? I got caught up in showing Kari everything as I pulled it out. Here I am showing her my coveted 64 oz. bottle of Ghirardelli White Chocolate syrup! It's my sister Karin's "fault" that I brought this back with me. Karin got me hooked on Starbuck's White Chocolate Mochas while I was in the States. Each time she came to town to visit, she treated me and that's what got me hooked on "coffee". I've already opened the bottle and enjoyed 2 cups of coffee.

Not a lot planned for this week-at least not worth writing about! I'll be busy working on education emails and making a few member care Skype calls during the day, and in the evening I'll work on a few house projects now that our crate has arrived.

We have a list of 10 projects that we'll be working on bit by bit this week. Things like hang our new family pictures, alphabetize our new DVD's into the old ones, paint the wall going up the stairs, take my new fabric to Judit so that she can make me a duvet, bedskirt and matching curtains for the guest bedroom, find room for all the new books we brought back with us (for personal enjoyment and for my work as education consultant for Europe). Ah! But it is sooo good to be home to be able to take care of things things finally!